Ritual
by Glitterglue
Summary: S/S Takes place years later. Sark watches Sydney during her annual ritual. Sydney remembers. *third and final chapter up*
1. Default Chapter

It was a really awful day outside. Rainy and overcast. But that's ok, it suited me, and it suited what she was doing. Once a year for the past five years, I've sat in this same spot, inside the parked car atop the crest of the only hill in the cemetary. I watch her as she once again indulges in this depressing ritual. Depressing, yes, and meaningful I guess.  
  
She traces each letter of his name with an unsteady finger. Shaking from the cold or the emotion, I can't tell from this far away. She told me that she thinks of a memory with him on each letter. I don't know what she'll do when she runs out of memories.  
  
I know she loves him. I know she'll always and that if he was still alive, this women would be with him, and not me. That's fine, I can deal with that. That just means it will be harder for me to make her forget him. Agent Vaughn was a good man, I'm sure, and he loved her, no doubt. But I love her, too. Where as my sole concern used to be myself, it is now myself and her. My new mission: have her love me as much as she loved him, if not more.  
  
And I'll get there. Francie was thrilled when she found Sydney moving in with her kind yet strangly mysterious boyfriend. Will was less enthusiastic but I suspect his fake molars have something to do with it. He'll get past it one day, or he'll get out of Sydney's life.  
  
My God, how did we get here? One day, maybe I'll sit down and list the events that paired me with her. I don't know, maybe it's destiny or fate or God's sence or irony. Sleeping with the enemy.  
  
Slowly, she rises from her kneeling position, shrugs her jacket tighter onto her shoulders and walks back to the car. I wont say anything to her, she doesn't want me to. This is her tradition, not mine.  
  
Yes, I know she still loves him more than me. But I can deal with that. Someday I'll get there. We both will.  
  
  
  
*Please people, write more S/S fics, they're what I live for! Review. 


	2. sydney

A.N: I never planned on adding to this fic. But insomnia, boredom, and reviews have persuaded me otherwise.  
  
Disclaimer: If I said it WAS mine..would anyone even believe me?  
  
  
  
It was a really awful day outside. Rainy and overcast. But that's ok, it suited me, and it suited what I was doing. Once a year for the past five years, I've sat in this same spot, in front of his weathered tombstone. I once again indulge in this depressing ritual. Depressing, yes, and meaningful I guess.  
  
It shouldn't have been him. No, he was an innocent, an outsider. Whatever compelled him to follow me that day, that mission, it led to his demise. And mine. God, he was such a fool. He was so stupid. All he could ever think of was protecting me, and I didn't even need him to. He never really understood what he was doing. He never had to live each day fearing he'd come home to another dead body in a bathtub. He never understood that he should have been afraid. It shouldn't have been him, it should have been me.  
  
I loved him so much. I loved him so much..but a little bit everyday, he was killing me. Suffocating me, keeping me in the dark about things I had a right to know about. He wasen't letting me live.  
  
I even went to he and Alice's wedding. I stayed long enough to give her a hug and drop off a brightly wrapped expresso machine. The card said, 'To a long and happy life together.-Rita.' He gave me that look as I walked to the exit. You know, that look. The one where he's about to break down and cry, 'I want to be with you, I don't want this, this isn't right.' I just turned and walked away. I think Alice saw that expression in his eyes. She left him 18 months later.  
  
Slowly, I rise from my kneeling position, shrug my jacket tighter onto my shoulders and walk back to the car. The car with Sark in it. Andrew Sark. The day he told me his real name was the day I realized I loved him. I've never told him that, I don't need to. He loves me so much. More than he loves himself, that's saying quite a bit. For as long as he can remember, he's all that he's had.  
  
In the middle of the night, when we're both tired of pretending to sleep, he asks why I don't say it. Say I love him. I tell him it's because he wont let me call him Andrew. And he replies that he isn't Andrew anymore. It's the same each time, the same dance. I wonder if he knows the actual reason why. The actual reason I don't say it.  
  
I feel guilty. I feel guilty for being with him. He tortured my friend. He's slaughtered men without flinching. He played a part in the death of my father. Of my mother.  
  
And I love him more than Vaughn.  
  
Sark let's me live. He let's me live and he's all I've got left.  
  
I get in the car and turn the heat up some more as he backs out of the cemetery. He wont say anything to me, I don't want him to. This is my tradition, not his.  
  
"Sark?"  
  
"Yes, love."  
  
"Let's go somewhere."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Someplace else."  
  
"For how long, Sydney."  
  
"Until you let me call you Andrew."  
  
He turns and looks at me. He doesn't smile, but his eyes get a tiny bit wider.  
  
"Okay."  
  
We don't go home to pack, we just start driving. I don't know where we're going. But someday we'll get there. He and I both.  
  
  
  
A.N: Whenever I think of the future for all the characters, I see Syd and Sark together. Jack, Irina, and Vaughn dead. Will still being broody and all together pretty annoying and unentertaining and Francie still oblivious to everything that goes on around her. I just don't know HOW they all get there. Sorry, writing stories with PLOTS is not my strong suit. I'll keep doing these little introspections. Review please. 


	3. end

A.N: Here it is, last part.I enjoyed writing this little trio of chapters, I hope everyone who read it liked it too. =====================  
  
It was a beautiful day out. Sunny and breezy and not a cloud in the sky. It suited her, it suited her new life. Once a year for the past six years she's sat in this exact spot, in front of his simple tombstone. She once again indulges in this meaningful ritual. Meaningful, yes, and no longer depressing.  
  
She's smiling as she starts to talk to him, a first since this tradition began.  
  
"Hey Mike.It's been a while. Another year, but I guess you pretty much knew that." She laughs at the absurdity of the comment and reaches to trace the engraved 'M' with a gentle finger.  
  
"You've been missed a lot in this past year." She pauses and considers her next words. "And you've missed a lot. A lot of things have happened."  
  
Instinctively she moves her left hand to rest on the barely visible protrusion of her stomach. The movement creating a prism of light, caused by the diamond ring on that same hand, to dance on the granite. Her right hand finishes outlining the lower case 'l' before beginning the uppercase 'V.'  
  
"I know you wouldn't approve, I know that wherever you are, that you're frowning at me and my decisions. But that's not what I came for, your approval."  
  
She frowns, the first frown on her face for a long, long while.  
  
"I came just to say good-bye. A year from now, I don't know where I'll be, but Mike, it wont be here. I don't know if it ever will be again. Everything has to end sometime, and this should have been over a long time ago."  
  
Her finger reaches the 'n' at the end of his name.  
  
"Good-bye"  
  
Sydney slowly rises from her sitting position and begins to walk toward the parked car, without any guilt or doubt about whether it should be him that is waiting there for her. The car with Andrew Sark in it.  
  
Her child's father.  
  
Her husband.  
  
She gets in and turns on the radio as he backs out of the cemetery.  
  
"You still love him, don't you?" He asks her. His wife, his love, his life. "Yeah.I'm sure I always will."  
  
She doesn't look at him or touch him, she doesn't need to.  
  
"You know I love you more, right?" She asks him. Her husband, her love, her savior.  
  
A slow grin makes its way across his face. "Yeah, I know."  
  
He keeps driving, neither knowing where exactly they're going. But that's fine with them both, because really, they've already gotten there. 


End file.
